17GHz Fine Grid Clock Distribution with Uniform-Amplitude Standing-Wave Oscillator

Abstract

This paper presents an inductive-loaded standing-wave clock oscillator. By coupling the oscillators into mesh structure, multi-ten GHz uniform-phase/amplitude global clocks can be distributed over a whole chip. In the mesh structure, finer grid can be employed than the conventional standing-wave technique, and it makes the depth of clock tree very shallow. We designed and fabricated a 17.2GHz oscillator in a 0.18mum 6 metal CMOS technology. Low jitter less than 0.2% of the clock period has been achieved with 400mum transmission line that was less than 1/10 of the conventional one. The power consumption was 13mW at 1.8V supply voltage